In the current lesson, we will review a highly popular JavaScript UI library, called “React“. In short, React.JS is a component-based front-end technology for the Web. The JSX components in React combine HTML and JavaScript to display the component UI, which is bound to the internal component state.
The lesson includes a small demo React app, which defines a JSX component and renders it in the Web browser.
Later in the lesson, you will find a slightly more complicated demo: how to create a simple React calculator, which sums two numbers. We will review each of the files inside the sample React app to understand better how it works internally.
So, what is React?
When we talk about user interface and front-end frameworks, it is worth mentioning React.
- React is a powerful JavaScript library from Facebook for building Web user interfaces using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The UI is built from JSX components, which combine HTML + JavaScript using a built-in templating engine.
- React is а component-based UI library.
- With React, developers create reusable UI components, which have a lifecycle, internal state and behavior.
It is discussable whether React is a library or a framework. It is maybe somewhere in between.
By adding some additional components like React Router, MobX, Redux, Flux, React Toolbox, and some others, we can turn to React into a fully-functional Web front-end framework.
Lesson Topics
- React – Overview
- Live Demo – Summator
